CHULA VISTA  Soledad Mexia, the oldest person in California and the world’s fifth-oldest person, died Thursday night in a Chula Vista care facility 17 days after celebrating her 114th birthday.

Mrs. Mexia was the first of several supercentenarians who submitted DNA and blood for analysis in a UCLA/Stanford study, the results of which are expected to be published in a science and medicine journal by year’s end. According to the Gerontology Research Group, the world’s oldest living citizens are 115-year-old Misao Okawa, of Japan, followed by three U.S. women, 114, all born within three months of Mrs. Mexia.

To family, Mrs. Mexia was just “Nana.” A homemaker who raised seven children and lived to see nine great-great-grandchildren born, she enjoyed cooking, singing and watching her “novelas” (Spanish soap operas) on television.

But she loved family gatherings best. At her birthday party this month, about 100 relatives representing five generations feted her with cake and song.

“She was more like a home person,” said granddaughter Rosalia Ferreira. “She loved to sing and she would sing with her grandkids.”

Born Soledad Bonillas on Aug. 13, 1899, in the Mexican state of Sinaloa, she was the youngest of two daughters to Benigno and Refugio Bonillas. Orphaned at a young age, she was raised by her sister in Sinaloa. Despite having no formal education, she had beautiful penmanship and could read and write, family said.

An avid storyteller, she often regaled family in her native Spanish with tales of when she was 10 at the start of the Mexican Revolution. She would talk of the government’s control of the people and how the Sinaloan borders were closed against the fighting.

“She was in Mazatlan, Sinaloa, and nobody could come in or out,” said great-grandson Oscar Lopez. “The government was giving out rations and she used to tell us, ‘Oh, rations. You would think it was very little, but it was the best I had ever eaten.’ ”

Growing up in a home with no electricity, she would entertain herself and family by reciting poetry and singing, a practice she continued until just a couple of years ago, Lopez said. When she was 16, the opera came to Mazatlan and she longed to be an opera singer, but she had to abandon the dream because her family did not consider it a suitable occupation for a respectable girl, he said.

At 20, she married Juan Mexia, a carpenter who constructed sets for the theater and opera in Mazatlan. Their courtship consisted of seeing the performances for free.

“That is how she got to live out a little bit of her dream,” Lopez said.

The newlyweds lived for a time in Los Angeles and Phoenix, but always returned to Sinaloa. Mrs. Mexia moved to south San Diego County for good in the early 1960s, living with her children until she moved into Fredericka Manor in 2011.

Mrs. Mexia never remarried after her husband’s death in 1955. But when, at age 100, she obtained her U.S. citizenship, the presiding judge asked her what she expected from the government. In her characteristic dry wit, she replied, “I expect maybe a husband.”

When she reached her 110th birthday, the media came calling. Everyone wanted to know the secret of her longevity, family members said.

“She said she didn’t know,” Ferreira said. “She lived an easy life. She always ate healthy food, none of this fast food we always eat. And she loved to sleep.”

Lopez said he, too, asked his great-grandmother what the key was to her personal fountain of youth.

“She told me, ‘It’s just God’s will. God wants me to be this age. He just wants me here.’ ”

Mrs. Mexia is survived by four of her seven children: daughters Armiba Galaz of San Diego, and Rafaela Loza, of Temecula; sons Hector Mexia, of Orange County, and Rolando Mexia, of Chula Vista; 23 grandchildren, 52 great-grandchildren; and nine great-great-grandchildren.